Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life* (*Monty Python whistling optional)

Oh dear. I've done it again. I've let blogging slip down my ever-increasing to-do list, and am now resisting the urge to start a post with an apology: the very thing I said I shouldn't do.

In my defence, the last four weeks of term since we returned from our holidays have been completely and utterly hectic. One of our teachers was on study leave - apparently in Windhoek observing Grade 12 teaching and not the infamous lounging-around-at-home-watching-sitcoms-on-E4 kind - and for whatever reason, Caitlin and I were left to cover his classes. Last time I blogged, this was a challenge. This was character building. Character building, I thought to myself, I can do.

This is what happens when you leave me alone with an empty classroom and new stationery...

Exhibit A: the 'Spelling Superstars' wall, the cause of much intrigue, excitement and hysteria

What happened in between posts was something I don't think I had ever anticipated. Another of the teachers disappeared on study leave for one week, and again, for whatever reason, C and I found ourselves juggling 2 full-time teachers' timetables and our own work. This, I thought to myself, I am not sure whether I can do- at least, not with the energy and enthusiasm that I'd like to. I freely admit that it was, at times, exceedingly frustrating and, at times, it felt like Namibia had never pushed us so hard. Fortunately, it was, at times, great fun and. I figured that if there were no rules, there were none to break: I did the work with them that I wanted to do. I'm reasonably sure my kids think I'm mad as a box of frogs, but I gave up caring - eccentricity was inevitable. We had wall decorations, grammar posters, and the introduction of weekly spelling tests, dreaded by most UK students across the board, went down bizarrely well. The 'Spelling Superstars' wall became the single most controversial square metre of wall space in the entire school; I found myself giving up at least 5 minutes of my lesson on a Thursday morning to let each class scrutinise their scores and the names on the wall. Certificates are another ball game all together. Have you ever tried unleashing certificates on a class of 10 year olds? Oh my giddy aunt. Grade 6A got so jealous of the three students that won them that I had to invite them back to talk to me after school about their complaints! Apparently, one girl is so angry, she is going to write a letter to the Minister. However, I also have a dedicated fan club of 19 certificate winners, and despite the raucous I may have caused, I had classes that cared about their work, classes that were motivated to win, and ultimately, classes whose spelling test scores were largely excellent. Lily - 1, Rest of the World - not quite 0, but I think I won anyway. Moral victory, or something.



Much to my delight, all of our staff have returned and I have had two brilliant days at school this week. That to-do list is being well and truly obliterated! I have finally joined in with Grade 6 and Grade 7 Afrikaans classes, and I'm having my Nama dress for our upcoming culture weekend in July fitted today with one of the other teachers. The nature of our work is due to change slightly, with us teaching less of our Arts/BIS lessons and taking on learning support for the students that have serious literacy problems - quite a startling number, even in the upper primary grades. This is a challenge; but this, I think I can do.

Time is flying uncomfortably quickly, and I am struggling to believe that it is mid-June already. However, if I get too bothered by it, I remember that I found Pimm's (of all things in all places) in my local Spar last weekend, and suddenly all is well with the world again. Bright indeed.

Bana ba Metsi

I remember being told at school that one should never begin a speech with an apology of any sort: I would like to apply the same principle to blogging, only I really have let it fall off the radar and have been sitting with this post in the Drafts folder for at least a week. Sorry!

Where were we? Holidays, and I believe I last wrote about Victoria Falls. After our Zambia trip, we spent the last week of our holiday in the Okavango Delta in northern Botswana, visiting the two Project Trust volunteers at Bana ba Metsi school. I'm really hoping that I get this right - Bana ba Metsi is a school for boys from vulnerable backgrounds that aims to enable them to improve their prospects for the future. Many of the pupils are orphans, and some have never received a full, formal primary education; attending the school offers respite from very difficult circumstances and the opportunity to obtain their primary school qualifications. One of the most ingenious aspects of the school, however, is that alongside their education, the boys are also taught practical skills like joinery, carpentry and agriculture, and they use these to contribute towards the school community. While we were there, for example, the students were working on the plumbing for the new toilet block, and had already thatched the roof themselves. I dread to think what would happen if you let a power drill loose in one of our classes, but they were brilliant with it - by the end of the session, we left with all members of the group, all digits in tact and a decent start on the project.

It was fascinating to visit the school, and it is particularly interesting to see a country from the perspective of the volunteers: while most visitors to the Delta flew in expensive planes over our heads, we spent a day travelling on a bus,a  combi, a ferry and a truck with one loose door to find ourselves right in the middle of the bush and surrounded by the world's greatest inland delta. We did end up staying one more night than originally planned (perhaps a foolish decision given the 3 day trek back to Tses that was to follow), but it was certainly worth it. In the company of two more Scots and a German, all of whom are musically talented and have a small orchestra of instruments with them, we had a rather bizarre music evening after watching the sun set by the river and before a wonderful braai featuring fillet steak and...just fillet steak. A fantastic end to a truly wonderful holiday.

And now we're back in business here in Tses! Last week was nominally the first week of the new term, but it was a strange start: Monday was the first day for the staff; Tuesday was the first day for the few kids that turned up, only to be sent home at 9am; Wednesday was the first full day of school, but the kids had neither books nor pens; Thursday was our first real attempt at actually trying to do some schoolwork;and then on Friday, we had a condensed timetable to make way for an Africa Day celebration. School is also somewhat chaotic, as one teacher is on study leave for a month and so Caitlin and I are covering his classes as well as our own timetable. We are both exceptionally busy, and perhaps I am mad to say so, but I'm quite enjoying it. Most of my timetable is now consumed by his English classes, which I do like teaching, and I have only Grades 5 and 6 for that (sorry Grade 7, I'm assuming none of you have found this blog yet!). I'm still flying around at 100mph with a to-do list as long as my arm, and I can see that this term could become stressful in a way that Africa typically isn't, but I have never enjoyed a challenge more. More soon!

Three Volunteers, Two Nations and One Giant Waterfall

After Sossusvlei, it was time to leave Namibia for the first time and head off to Victoria Falls. For the trip, Caitlin and I met up with Lorna, another Project Trust volunteer, who has a cracking sense of humour and an even better Yorkshire accent. After several hours waiting in a Wimpy restaurant, 17 hours on a coach (including an hour of gospel television as entertainment : I kid you not, it’s as weird as it sounds), we had arrived in Zambia.

Our first day was spent in Livingstone, getting to grips with Zambia and relaxing after our bus journey . We did decide to take a trip to the local orphanage that our hostel seems to have a link with that afternoon. Bit of a mistake. Listing a trip to a children’s home next to safaris and rafting trips under the guise of volunteering set my ‘volun-touirsm' alarm bells ringing. Sadly, I was right. Whilst it was interesting to see the home, I just didn’t feel like our presence contributed anything valuable or that we were providing anything worthwhile. A controversial point of view, perhaps, but the distinction between goodwill and mere gawping is one that I feel is worth considering. (Please note: all views published on this blog are solely my own, and do not represent the opinions of Project Trust or any other organisation I represent here in Namibia).

Zambia, however, certainly did not disappoint: it was a truly incredible trip to a fantastic country. The Falls themselves are simply magnificent.  You can see the spray from the falls for kilometres around, and the noise hits you as soon as you step out of the bus – they don’t call it Mosi-Oa-Tunya, The Smoke That Thunders, for nothing. Walking around the trails, it’s impossible not to be overwhelmed by the force of the water, the enveloping spray and the density of the rainforest. They do rent out ponchos for visitors walking around the Falls, but waterproofs are for sissies: we were determined to get absolutely drenched. Crossing Knife Edge Bridge in the pouring rain (? spray? not totally sure which direction the water was coming from, but there was lots of it) was invigorating, and although we were pointed at and conspicuously laughed at by a group of Asian tourists for being so soaked, we had a fantastic time. There’s going to Victoria Falls, and there’s wearing Victoria Falls; we had a great laugh doing both. After exploring the park and drying off a little on a walk through the craft markets, we headed to the Victoria Falls Bridge where Caitlin and I did a zip slide across the river, temporarily ending up in Zimbabwe for all of 5 minutes, and Lorna did a bungee jump of 111m over the Zambezi. Turns out Lorna is an absolute scream in more ways than one, but exceptionally brave.

"Is it really that wet?...."

"....yep, definitely soaking."

After an early morning elephant back safari with Caitlin and yet more time in Livingstone’s craft markets on Tuesday, we finished our time in Zambia with a sunset cruise on the river. Some labelled it as a booze cruise, which sounds a little more debauched-6^th-year-holiday-in-Malia/Zante/some-other-Godforsaken-Greek-island than Central-African-Wonder-of-the-World, but it turned out to be more like a floating barbeque, and a lovely evening as the sun went down over the Zambezi: simply stunning.

Me?! Carried away with Zambian souvenirs?! Never.....

Sun, Sand and Sossusvlei

After a quick turnaround in Windhoek after Swakopmund, it was time to make like tourists again, jump on a tour bus and head south to Sossusvlei. Impossible to pronounce, it is a range of sand dunes in an ancient dried river bed in the Namib-Naukluft National Park in western Namibia. It is almost entirely desert, and as you drive down, the landscape changes and ends up looking like a cross between Mars and the Moon. But very, very sandy.

Almost 4 months in Namibia hasn’t cured my intolerance to early mornings, but even I have to admit that this barren, deserted landscape looks incredible at sunrise and sunset. Watching the sun come up as we sat on top of Dune 45 was stunning, and the way that the light catches the grooves in all of the sand dunes is both infuriatingly difficult to capture on a standard digital camera, and infinitely more impressive seen with the naked eye. That’s my story anyway, and I’m sticking to it.

We then spent the remainder of the morning on a walk through the desert to Deadvlei – a large, dry pan that is completely and utterly dead. Trees have stood there for hundreds of years, but are entirely dried out and look like something out of a Halloween cartoon. The colours are simply fantastic though, and to see such a unique landscape felt very special. If only a pesky grain of sand hadn’t snuck into the lens to make a uniform black spot on all my pictures!

Our journey back to Windhoek took us back to a bakery in the middle of the desert owned by a man named Moose McGregor, who was very excited at the arrival of two Scots and was desperate to share his Scottish ancestry with us. Fortunately, he was also happy to share two extra large pieces of apple pie for the standard price – most exciting. We also stopped at a cheetah rehabilitation reserve outside Solitaire for a short drive with the cats. The foundation has a great ethos, and what their programme offers really is impressive: although we were only there for a very short trip, it was fantastic to see cheetahs so legitimately close and was a great way to finish our Sossusvlei trip before heading up to Zambia!

Notes From An Amateur Backpacker

Time and Wi-Fi are proving difficult to find in the same place and at the same time, so blogging has been a little sporadic recently – lots to catch up on since April. After a brilliant end of term (they came in, wrote an exam, had an assembly featuring Mrs Kruse’s dancing, and then left by 9am), we’re now on holiday!

Caitlin and I are travelling for four weeks, on a trip that will take us around Namibia, into Zambia to visit Victoria Falls, and then to Botswana to visit some other volunteers. Our first stop towards the end of April was a short safari in Etosha National Park in northern Namibia – a fantastic 3 days with amazing wildlife. There are no buffalo in the park to complete Africa’s Big Five, but we did spot all of Etosha’s Big Four – lion, elephant, rhino and leopard-, plus countless zebra, giraffe, springbok and warthog. Watching the animals come to drink at the floodlit waterhole under the stars was a highlight: difficult to capture on camera, but absolutely beautiful and any pictures I take could never to justice to how remarkable it was to watch.

What also struck me about Etosha was the number of tourists we came across. Living in the middle of southern nowhere, we rarely see any other foreigners, but here, there were hundreds of them. Armies of khaki-clad warriors, with socks pulled high around their knees and permanently brandishing titanic Canon SLR contraptions, were everywhere. Whilst it meant that we were lucky to have only 5 on our tour, and benefitted from a night in a rather nice tourist lodge, it did feel rather strange to be a foreign visitor to Namibia all over again. Whilst I am by no means local, and we are still very much those two white girls with the custard cream addiction, I do have a noticeably different perspective on Namibia: what I see of this country, and the way that I see it, is completely different as a volunteer than it is as a tourist. At least it made me look a little less pasty in comparison!

Our tour of Etosha finished in Swakopmund, a fairly large town on the Atlantic coast. They joke that it’s more German than Germany, which may not be strictly true, but it was truly bizarre how European the town is. It’s full of cafes, boutiques, bars, restaurants and a very pleasant seafront – couldn’t be further from Tses if it tried.  One thing we did do was sandboarding in the dunes just south of the town. Essentially, you take a dune, a helmet and a piece of waxed plywood and...that’s it. You just send yourself flying down giant piles of sand very, very quickly. Trekking up and down was knackering, and I think it’s an understatement to say I’m not really cut out for these things, but it was good fun nevertheless. It was lovely to have some time to relax by the sea, and meeting up with Sachi and Jake (another PT volunteer) also made for an excellent break. Photos from Swakop are, unfortunately, few and far between. This is for several reasons: firstly, we spent a lot of time not doing an awful lot; secondly, it’s a bit difficult taking photos whilst out sandboarding; thirdly, after encounters with dune sand and one unprecedented wave, my camera had a bit of a hissy fit for a while.

 In Livingstone at the moment, due to visit Victoria Falls tomorrow and cannot wait. Updates on Sossusvlei and our pending Zambia adventure coming soon!

Open Books, Open Minds

This post has been a long time coming! Every time I almost write a proper entry about it, something else happens, and stories that started out in my head as short footnotes take up a whole page and end up totally overtaking. So here we go – a timeline of photos should give you some idea of what we’ve managed over the last few months.

We started from scratch : moving those bookcases, cleaning all the surfaces and sorting through the books (4th February)

By 21st February, we had separated the books into fiction and non-fiction, and were busy splitting the non-fiction section into ten divisions by topic.

This was taken on 5th March. Fiction had been labelled with call numbers, taped and alphabetised;  at this point, we had done the same with non-fiction and were starting to put them all back in order.

By the 7th March, you could take a picture of some spines, pretend you had a proper-looking library already and almost kid yourself that there wasn't that much more to do.... 

...but then it took us until the last week of March to sort the rest of them  out and finish. Phew!

The finished product at the end of March. We're using the bookcases to separate the library space from the classroom  that shares the same room, and trying to decorate the backs with some posters. You can also see the mural painted nearly 20 years ago: open books, open minds.

The only teeny, tiny, incy-wincy thing is that it doesn’t look like that at the moment.

We’ve had to pack it all up.

Absolutely breaks my heart taking the whole thing to pieces again. But the wonderful news is that the reason it’s being taken apart is to prepare for greater things. A German firm is sponsoring the development of a computer lab for Nowak Primary School, which is being installed over the school holidays. The room will be painted, 12 computers installed, and we will most likely have wireless Internet access. I can’t tell you how exciting this is – not just because I get tangled up in cables every time I try and hook up my laptop to the dial-up broadband (I am neither coordinated nor good with technology), but it’s. One of our subjects is BIS, ultimately a class in media skills, and although we have started using the library as best we can, it will be brilliant to have some computers. Computer literacy will be a whole new set of skills for them, and after school classes will be offered to the most competent, well behaved learners in each grade. I’ve really come to love finding these opportunities for kids that really deserve a reward: it sounds so terribly cheesy and all very gap-year-y, but chances like these are a big deal for kids at a rural primary school in a region so affected by Namibia’s socio-economic inequalities.Our school is involved in the British Council’s Connecting Classrooms initiative, and we’ve already sent off our first parcel of students’ letters and drawings to our partner school in Yorkshire. Taking those kids with the best work outside and telling them that their work has been chosen  is an absolute joy to watch:  they’re really excited, super proud of themselves and a number of them asked me on Monday morning whether the parcel had been sent safely. You could also see that it took the rest of the class by surprise: they don’t often get opportunities like these, and you could see that they hadn’t really twigged that yes, Miss Macmillan and Miss Mortimer were serious about sending the best work all the way to the UK and yes, they did expect you to put some effort in if you wanted your work to be included. This programme seems to have really captured their attention, and so with computer access, they can get all the more involved online with the programme for themselves.

It will mean I have to take on a bit of ICT teaching, which is a terrifying thought given how truly terrible I am with computers. “Switch it off, switch it on again” may have to get painted on the wall too!

World Health Day

I did promise I’d blog a bit about this one! World Health Day is marked on 7^th April, and does pretty much what it says on the tin: its purpose is to share, educate and raise awareness about different health issues across the globe. It’s something Caitlin and I have been looking at with our classes over the past week, and something I thought was worth a mention.

I am very aware of the picture I will be painting for you, so I feel that now is a good time to formally remind everyone that the opinions published on this blog are solely my own; they are not representative of Project Trust, Nowak Primary School, the Namibian Ministry of Education or any other organisation I am affiliated with during my time here. Just me being me and thinking too much – only this time, I’ve decided to write and share them with you.

Joining in with World Health Day is especially important here, as heaven knows Tses has its fair share of many of the major health issues that southern Africa battles with. The infection rate of HIV/AIDS in Namibia stands at just over 20%, and the government respond to this with lots of funding for HIV/AIDS related programmes, free condoms are everywhere and almost every syllabus throughout the education system stresses some way of linking up the course material with raising awareness of the disease. It’s seriously impressive: many of my students can’t string a sentence together, but almost all of them can effortlessly reel off volumes of information and advice about preventing HIV/AIDS. The devil is, however, in the application. There seems to be a difference between knowing an awful lot and actually being informed. On one hand, we spend forever and a day encouraging kids of all ages to be aware of preventing HIV/AIDS ; on the other, Namibia also has a very high teenage pregnancy rate, and by our roughest guess-timating last night with Sachi, we reckon that up to 10% of our secondary school students  here in Tses could quite possibly be parents already. The question is, if all the kids know about using the importance of protection in the context of HIV prevention, where and why did that wisdom break down? A similar problem exists with managing HIV/AIDS. Health services provide free testing and treatment for those affected – no mean feat, given the extortionate cost of anti-retrovirals-, but the trouble is that managing the disease often requires a very structured schedule of taking medication at intervals and sometimes with food. What happens when you don’t have a watch, or you don’t know when your next meal is going to come? Throw in issues with TB, the fact that 40% of our learners rely on the government feeding programme at school, and a rate of alcohol abuse that our admittedly dubious maths estimates exceeds two-thirds of Tses’ population, and it’s not hard to see that World Health Day is directly pertinent to these kids as the future of Tses, Namibia and even Africa as a whole.

In an attempt to at least address some of these issues, we structured our lessons so that our classes spent all of last week doing work related to health issues. In BIS, they used library books to help them make posters about different diseases.

A, M & M in Grade 7A hard at work

T in Grade 7B (you have no idea how hard it was explaining that I didn't want her to pose for the camera)

S's finished poster, Grade 7A

A, N, A & D with their finished work, Grade 5A

In Arts, each class broke off into smaller groups to create and perform short plays about a health issue of their choice. We weren’t sure how this would go, as asking such a large group of such wild kids to do a task that is pretty unusual for them could all go horribly wrong. I have to say, I feel terrible at how sceptical I was : they were brilliant.

5B perform a short play about HIV/AIDS

The 6B boys attempt a sketch about teenage pregnancy (see below for more on that one)

The 6B girls in action

We had one of our grade 5s stumbling over all the furniture and rolling around on the floor in a play about underage drinking, and one of our grade 6 boys gave birth to a rolled-up-hoody-baby-bump in a sketch about HIV – as you do. The learners were killing themselves laughing. I was killing myself laughing. They were killing themselves laughing at me killing myself laughing. It was highly entertaining, and I think they had a lot of fun tackling what are, to be fair, some pretty serious issues for primary school children. Productive, informative, and amusing – dare I say it, it almost sounds like a proper lesson!